The Hardest Part
by yas-m
Summary: She’s always had his back, but this time he knows he could be asking a little too much. Companion piece to "Strength in you Tears". Could be read separately. Set during The Incident.


**Title:** The Hardest Part

**Pairing: Jack/Kate**

**Rating:** PG-13

**Spoilers:** All seasons

**Summary:** She's always had his back, but this time he knows he could be asking a little too much.

**Notes:** Companion piece to "Strength in Your Tears"

**Disclaimer:** not mine

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"But nothing... nothing in my life has ever felt so right. And I just need you to believe that,"

_I don't like the new you. I liked the old you who wouldn't just sit around waiting for things to happen._

"It's about to happen,"

_Just because we're on the same plane doesn't mean we're together._

"Are you with me on this?"

_So, do you believe it? That's everything's going to be ok?_

You hate that you are doing this to her. Asking her the impossible. Asking her to have your back and share the burden. You look into her eyes and know that this could be the request the she will not be able to handle. You know that you are asking too much and you brace yourself to hear her say no. You deserve her rejection after you all you have put her through. You are asking her, after all, to go back to being a wanted criminal, in hand cuffs, being escorted to an almost definite life behind bars. You know she will say no, and despite your attempt at a courageous smile you are preparing for her rejection. For your last request to break her completely.

_All the misery that we've been through, it would just wipe it clean. Never happened._

You have probably not given this enough thought, or at least not as much as you should have. But you have come to terms with what it will mean to you to reset the future – your past. You will be on the plane on your way to bury your father, who died because of you – disappointed in you – with a sad excuse for a eulogy half crumpled in your pocket. Your mother will most probably disown you and never talk to you again. You will go back to your lonely apartment, to a stack of papers from your lawyer that you have to sign to finalize your divorce. You will never meet the people you have come to call your friends. You will never know and meet your sister. Or her son. The little boy who laughed heartily sitting on your shoulders in the park and who more that once would call you Daddy. The little boy who would wait up for you on days you worked late, just for you to read to him and tuck him in. You will never know the joy of being a father, of having the perfect family, of having her. Kate.

_It was not all misery._

You will never feel her shaky hands, soft skin against yours, as she sews your back. You will never see her smile – that smile that could make you forget the fact that you had crashed on a godforsaken island – and for a moment you do not care about the smoke monster or the others or any of the other 42 people depending on you. You will never enjoy having her arms wrap around your neck or the feeling of her body as you pull it against yours with your one good arm, her face in your neck, her breath warm against your skin. You will never feel her fingers caress your stubbled cheeks, her hot tongue teasing yours, or her forehead against yours. You will never get to taste her lips for the first time, her sweet lips mixed with her salty tears. You will never hear her laugh so close to your ear, her body pressed dangerously against yours, as you hang in a net somewhere in the middle of jungle. You will never feel her hands snake around your waist and grab the gun in your pants or the way her body feels lying on top of your, her nose nudging your. You will never know the sweet taste of your own words as you tell her you love her. You will never experience that first time you give in to that consuming desire, that beautiful moment you became one. You will never feel her skin burning with want under your fingers, or hear her gasp when your lips work their down her stomach. The feeling of her nails digging into your shoulder, her heals on your back pushing you further and her eyes boring into yours as you come together. And you will never see the tears in her eyes when you show her the ring, and you will never hear her say those words – "Of course I will. Yes".

_Enough of it was._

But what matters most, is that you will not tear that apart for her either. You will not promise her love and replace it with mistrust. You will not promise her happiness and replace it drugs and alcohol. You will not promise her to be a family and bring that shattering down to the ground and walk out on her. That will never happen to her. You will never make her deliver a child in the middle of the jungle. You will never watch her see her friends being buried, one after the other. She will never have to look to you for strength as a bag is thrown over her head, or plead with you to save her friend to watch turn your back to her. She will never have to try to help you and be handcuffed or gassed. She will never have to leave her friends behind and live a lie. She will never have the gift of motherhood and then lose the one thing that made her complete. You will never take that away from her. You still cannot sleep at night because you still hear her devastated sobs pleading with you to trust her. A little boy's sleepy, frightened call to his mother remains a deafening whisper, a poison that flows in you. A whisper, you have painfully learned, no amount of alcohol or pills can silence.

"Yes,"

And you squeeze her hand.

"Let's do this then"

_If it's meant to be, it's meant to be._

And you truly believe that if it's your fate, then it will happen, you will find your way together again. And you cannot help but laugh at the irony of it all. If only John Locke were here today. What he would think of your new found faith.

_I don't believe in destiny._

_Yes, you do. You just don't know it yet._

You do now. And you believe that you will find her again. And if you don't then you will never know what you have missed out on, and you would have saved her from all that misery. And you pray that somehow, somewhere, she can understand why you have to do this, that you need to this, for her.


End file.
